


In my darkness I remember

by ThanksForListening



Series: Hair Ties and Lullabies [3]
Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, im back and ready to torture my favs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:30:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23479669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThanksForListening/pseuds/ThanksForListening
Summary: Helena gets stabbed, Dinah blows her powers, and everyone needs therapy.
Relationships: Dinah Lance & Renee Montoya, Helena Bertinelli & Harleen Quinzel, Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Series: Hair Ties and Lullabies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644340
Comments: 42
Kudos: 309





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the only thing i know how to write is hurt comfort but u know what at least im here lol tw for panic attacks and like slight mention of blood (like teensy tiny mention). also i've never read a comic book in my life so anything that wasn't in the movie i just made up lol sorry if i'm ruining comic canon

A lesson: nothing is ever easy, even when it should be.

Helena heard the voice in her head as she thought about the fight. Ten to three. Outnumbered, but not outmatched. Night sky around them, full moon above them. Open space — nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Fighting was as much about math as it was about muscle and skill, but men like these were all brute strength and unhinged rage, no finesse, no technique. The odds favored the wrong group.

The first problem was small. Her crossbow jammed just as she was about to take out goon number two. Grunting, she tossed it aside, let her combat training take over. 

A lesson: rely on nothing but your own two hands. As a child, she’d questioned why she needed to know how to fight if she could kill her enemies with her bow before they got close enough to hurt her; now she was grateful for the beating she’d received for asking, for the training that followed. She was prepared. She could handle them without it. They, however, didn’t seem to know that. 

The sound of her crossbow hitting the floor must have given the impression that she was a sitting duck, and suddenly instead of three men coming at her, she had five. With her bow, five was still manageable, but without it...her arrogance wasn’t so strong that she couldn’t admit that was pushing it, even for her. It was why part of her was relieved when Dinah came over. 

A lesson: never lose your concentration during a fight. She couldn’t remember how often she’d been reminded, the amount of times she’d hit the ground and heard him yell _focus, child_. The enemy would never play fair. Any moment could be the last, so she must never let her guard down, never get trapped in the belief that she was invincible. She knew, yet she found the memory slipping away when she fought with Dinah. Alone they were each a force to be reckoned with, but side by side, their strengths playing off each other? They were electric. They seemed to dance around the men in front of them, Dinah bringing a rhythm to her fighting that Helena easily followed. They took down one, two, three, four men without hesitation, and Helena found it difficult to notice anything but the woman beside her and the men on the ground beneath them.

A lesson: always make sure you know where everyone is in a fight. 

It was staring at the men they’d defeated that made her remember. As Dinah fought the fifth, Helena scanned the parking lot. All the strength and skill in the world wouldn’t help her without strategy. She’d learned the hard way what happened when you lost count, when you let one of your enemies slip your mind. So she hesitated, let Dinah finish the last guy as she saw four men on the floor, two down where Dinah had been earlier, one down and one about to go down by Renee. She counted again, then one more time, before swearing to herself and turning around. 

She spotted him right as the knife flew out of his hands. She didn’t need to do the math to know where it was heading, didn’t wait for her heart to drop to the pit of her stomach before turning toward Dinah, reaching her right before she could finish off the guy in front of her. Helena felt the knife place itself in her back right beneath her shoulder, sliding into a spot just beside her spine. It sent shivers through her whole body, and she couldn’t stop a cry from escaping as she tried to force her legs to stay standing. She grabbed a knife of her own and threw it backwards, the thud of a body hitting the ground telling her she found her target.

Her hands were on Dinah’s shoulders, and she knew that without her there, she likely would have collapsed already. Her eyes were closed, and she was trying to tell them to open, to make sure that Dinah had beaten the last guy and that Renee was still alright, but her body wouldn’t let her, and so she stood there with her eyes squeezed shut, now the sitting duck they’d thought she was. She felt a trail of blood make its way down to the small of her back, the sensation so unsettling she felt herself shiver again, her whole body shaking in a way that made her feel all too fragile. Her breaths were too labored, and with every one she silently begged: _open your eyes, open your eyes, open your eyes_. 

Her body didn’t listen, not until she felt the hands on her face. She watched Dinah come into focus, felt the warmth of her palms as she cupped her cheeks. She stared at her, and she usually knew what everyone around her was feeling, but right now her face looked like it was written in a different language. Dinah never felt anything quietly, but this one was uniquely strong, and Helena was so caught up in it that she almost didn’t notice the army walking toward them. 

What had been empty space was now filled with cars, groups of men unloading out of them endlessly. Dinah glanced at them, then turned back to her, a new but equally foreign expression on her face. She placed her hands on Helena’s, and it was only when she brought them up to her ears that she understood. 

Before she could protest, she turned around and screamed. Dinah’s screams weren’t something you heard, they were something you felt, and she could feel it now, the earth vibrating around them. It paralyzed her, kept her standing when she could barely feel her feet beneath her. Maybe it was the fatigue, or the blood loss, but Helena thought everything was bigger. She was louder, higher, stronger than the few times she’d used it before, and she wasn’t stopping, even as the men dropped and stayed down, even when no one was left standing but them. She screamed and screamed and screamed, her voice a cacophony, a symphony, a brutal combination of strength and beauty and horror and pain. 

The end seemed to echo like the last note of an opera, the vibrato visible as it made its way across the parking lot. Helena watched as Dinah began to drop, and before her body could lunge forward she saw Renee already there, ready to catch her. 

“You alright there, Huntress?” She asked, but as she looked up she must have seen the knife, and maybe it was worse than Helena thought because her face went white. “Oh, fuck.” Helena wanted to tell her she was fine, but all she could see was Dinah on the ground. Dinah unconscious. Dinah not moving. 

“She usually wakes up,” she whispered, and she wanted to look at Renee, a voice from a lifetime ago whispering that it was rude to not look someone in the eye when you were talking to them, but her eyes were glued and her body was still. “She should be waking up now.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Renee mumbled, and Helena finally forced herself to rip her eyes away from Dinah because the words she just heard didn’t make any sense. When she did, she saw that Renee wasn’t looking at her anymore. She’d brought her phone up to her ear and was staring at the street behind them, waiting in anticipation before whoever was on the other line had even picked up. “Quinn,” she said, “we got a situation.”

— 

“Lay her down on the couch,” Harley commanded as they walked into the warehouse Helena now called home. She watched as Renee and Harley made their way across the room. Harley had shown up in five minutes in Dinah’s car, an irony that Helena was desperate to remember for when the woman in their arms woke up. 

“She should be awake by now,” Helena said again. She’d lost track over how many times she’d mentioned it during the ride here, but it was as if her brain had short-circuited and it was the only thing she could think, the only thing she could say. 

“I’ve seen this before,” Renee huffed as they put Dinah down. “I think she blew her powers out.”

Helena didn’t know what to make of the words, so she kept her mouth shut. A hundred questions drowned in the pain from both the knife in her back and the sight of Dinah lying lifeless on the couch. She felt the urge to reach back, to yank it out and solve one of her problems, but Harley seemed to read her mind, because she was in front of her in an instant. 

“I know I’m a genius, but I gotta say that a broken Canary is a liiiiiitle out of my wheelhouse.”

“She’s not broken,” Helena whispered, but Harley acted like she didn’t hear her. 

“You, on the other hand, I _can_ fix.” She started trying to walk Helena toward the table they’d designated for medical purposes, but the idea of being farther away from Dinah was more distressing than the knife. 

“What happened before?” She called out to Renee, Harley literally dragging her toward the table. “How long did it take for her to wake up?”

“I’m not sure,” Renee said, but she sounded far away, farther than she should. “And it wasn’t Dinah who I saw blow her powers out.”

Before she could process Renee’s comment, she felt a pinch in her arm. Instinctively she reached for it, but Harley was faster, caught her wrist before she could grab the needle she saw in Harley’s other hand.

“What did you do?” Her tongue felt heavy as she spoke, and when Harley led her onto the table she found that she couldn’t resist it. 

“Sorry, Princess.” Harkey’s words sounded blurry, and as her eyes shut she vaguely heard her add, “You’ll thank me later.”

— 

Even with the sedation, the dreams didn’t relent. It started with a memory, one that was only a week old. The house had been quiet all day except for Dinah, who walked around singing a melody under her breath as they waited for night to fall. Helena didn’t mean to stare, but she couldn’t help herself. There was something so beautiful about the way she always let herself accompany the silence. Helena disappeared in it, but Dinah wove herself into the noiselessness until the two managed to coexist, despite the apparent contradiction. She froze when Dinah noticed her watching, but all she did was smile. 

She’d asked what the song was, a desperate attempt to avoid having to explain why she couldn’t take her eyes off her, and Dinah had smiled more, had grabbed her speaker and her phone and then Helena’s hand. She dragged her to the center of the house, told her she had to lie down and close her eyes to truly appreciate it. Helena complied instantly, shocked herself with her own willingness to put herself in a vulnerable position simply because Dinah asked her to. Before she could interrogate that realization, Dinah pressed play, and Helena was pretty sure she stopped breathing for the next four minutes. It felt rude, somehow, to do anything that would possibly interrupt the man singing through the speakers. The song was so gentle, so soothing, that with her eyes closed she could almost imagine herself floating, lying in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by nothing but water, not afraid but at peace.

She felt Dinah lay down next to her, felt their arms brush up against one another, and she hoped Dinah had her eyes shut too because she could feel the heat on her cheeks. When the song ended she looked over and saw Dinah still lying on the floor with her eyes closed, a smile lingering on her lips. 

When she did open her eyes, Helena expected her to act the way she had in that moment — gush about the song, send her a link to it, tell her to try listening to it when she couldn’t sleep. Instead, this Dinah opened her mouth and screamed. Her face shifted from relaxed to horrified, and Helena felt as if her body was being torn apart. As the sound waves hit her, one after the other after the other, she felt rather than heard the words: _Your fault. Your fault. Your fault._

Helena woke up angry. 

She discovered that she was on the med table, that she was lying on her stomach and that someone had put a pillow underneath her head. Her back throbbed as she sat up but she ignored it, her eyes already searching for the couch. 

She saw her the minute Renee walked into the room. 

“Has she woken up yet?” She asked in lieu of any sort of greeting. 

“Hey, easy there,” Renee ignored her question as she walked over. She went to help, but Helena waved her off as she put her feet on the ground and waited for the dizziness to pass. 

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Renee sighed, which was answer enough, although she still said, “No, she hasn’t.”

“What time is it? How long was I out?”

“It’s been about twelve hours. You just missed breakfast.”

“It’s morning?” She turned toward the window, just now noticing the sunlight shining through. 

“Yeah, whatever Quinn gave you really knocked you out. If you woke up before she got back, she said to tell you to, and I quote, ‘calm the fuck down and eat a bagel before you pass out.’” 

“Where is she?” Helena asked as Renee handed her said bagel. 

“Apparently our breakfast selection wasn’t up to Her Majesty's standards.”

“She can’t leave,” Helena’s voice was frantic and she could feel her rage rising. “What happens if Dinah wakes up? She’s supposed to know what to do, she—“

“Woah, woah, it’s okay,” Renee said, and Helena desperately wanted to shake off the hand that now rested on her shoulder but the pain in her back stopped her. “Harley already looked at her and said her vitals are fine. She’s just...knocked out. Recharging. All we can do is wait.”

Helena just shook her head, forced her lips together and wouldn’t let them separate. She didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to be any further away from Dinah than she already was, but she knew this feeling all too well, and no one deserved to be on the other side of her when she got like this. Instead she stormed off, ignoring Renee’s protests as she made her way downstairs. 

—

She lost count almost immediately. The sound of her fist hitting the bag in front of her became white noise, her movements so repetitive she stopped feeling the pressure against her wrists. She could still feel the skin on her knuckles breaking, made sure she didn’t go numb to that pain as each punch hit its target, her gloves discarded on the floor behind her. Her eyes were open but all she saw was her mistakes, each moment a lesson she should have learned by now. Catching a knife in the back: a lesson. Dinah screaming even though she knew she _hated_ screaming: a lesson. Dinah going down and staying down: a lesson. Everything that had gone wrong could have been avoided if she wasn’t so—

“If you tear your stitches, I’m not giving you any anesthesia when I redo them.” Helena stopped for just a second when she heard Harley’s voice, before picking up again. She could feel the throbbing in her back as she punched but she welcomed the pain, let it remind her of her failures, of the ways she let everyone down and—“

“Hey. Princess.” The name made her stop again, look back at Harley. “Seriously, that’s gonna hurt like a bitch if you keep trying to kill the punching bag.”

“Good. I deserve it,” she huffed, noticing for the first time how out of breath she was. “And don’t call me that.”

“Well, there’s certainly a lot to unpack here,” Harley said as she jumped onto a stack of mats against the wall, her feet dangling above the floor. “Which should we address first?”

“Leave me alone, Harley.” She started punching again, each swing more ferocious than the one before it.

“Ooh, so I get to pick?” She was back on her feet, wandering their training area as if it was literally impossible for her to sit still. “As much as I would love to dig into the family trauma directly, I think I’m gonna have to start with ‘ruining all of Harley’s hard work because I can’t process my emotions without violence’.”

“Harley, I mean it.”

“I mean it, too. Do you think being in pain is going to somehow change the fact that Dinah’s unconscious?” Helena could feel the rage bubbling deep in her gut, and she tried to breathe through it but it was a flame inside her, and every breath only gave it more life. 

“It’s my fault,” she managed to say, and her words were quiet but she knew Harley heard her. “I deserve it.”

“What’s your fault? Do you blame yourself because Dinah went full Canary? Because that’s kinda her signature move. Ties in with the whole bird metaphor pretty nicely.” 

“She doesn’t like it!” she said, louder than she meant to, and her hands were flying, railing into the bag in front of her with no sense of pace or purpose, and she knew it wasn’t safe but she couldn’t stop. “She did it for me and she doesn’t like doing it.”

“Do you _want_ her to have done it for you?” Harley’s question hit her like the knife in her back, and every word after only twisted it more. “Does the fact that she’d put herself in harm's way for you make you feel all warm inside?”

“Harley,” She warned, the tension in her body tightening like a rubber band waiting to snap. She knew she was taunting her, but she also knew it was working. 

“Or maybe, watching Dinah collapse and not wake up brought back some memories you’d rather forget about the last time people you love fell down and didn’t get back up. Maybe it _is_ about the family trauma after all.”

“STOP IT!” She hit the bag in front of her, and this time the pain was blinding. She fell to her knees, barely registering her impact with the floor as she reached back for the wound she was confident was now bleeding. 

She saw the shoes first, looked up to see Harley standing above her. She slowly sat down, waited until they were at eye level with each other, before quietly asking her, “Feel any better?”

Helena didn’t have enough resolve left to lie. “No.”

“That’s because you’re acting like you’re angry. But you’re not angry. Not really.”

“What,” She panted, “would you call this, then?”

Harley put a hand on her shoulder, and again Helena wanted to shove her off but again she lacked the strength. “It’s fear, Princess. You’re afraid.”

Part of her didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Afraid of what?”

“Only you can answer that. But my guess? Losing the people you care about. Having people to care about in the first place. The idea that if you lose them, it’ll be your fault, and there’ll be no one to track down on a thrilling vengeance-filled adventure.”

Helena just sat there. She willed her brain into silence, practiced the meditation techniques she’d been taught because she didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think about anything Harley said. Anger was easier. Anger was familiar. Anything else… 

“But what do I know?” Harley spoke again, and Helena had to force herself to look up at the woman in front of her. She smiled, but in a kind way, an expression she didn’t see on her face very often, at least not when Cass wasn’t around. “I only went to Med school. And speaking of Med school,” she ran to the mats she’d sat on earlier and came back with what looked like a fancy first aid kit, “turn around so I can redo my beautiful work.”

Helena complied, but she kept her eyes on Harley as she reached for a syringe. “I thought you weren’t going to give me anesthesia this time,” she said quietly. 

“Well, I _wasn’t_ , but now that I know you want to torture yourself, I’m not gonna _let_ you.”

“You gonna knock me out again?” Helena asked as she turned her head forward, felt Harley wipe away the blood making a trail down her back. 

“And risk getting stuck listening to Renee yelling at a TV for the next four hours because a group of grown men can’t run a ball over a line? Yeah, I don’t think so. You’ve got to suffer through that one with me.”

Helena almost smiled at the thought. “You should have seen her face when I told her that real football is played with your feet, not your hands.” Harley cackled, and the sound gave Helena the confidence to ask her, “Why did you sedate me the first time? I’ve been stabbed before and removing the knife isn’t _that_ bad.”

“First of all, how frequently are you getting stabbed?” Helena tried to shrug, which turned into a flinch when she remembered where exactly _this_ stab wound was located. “Second of all, it wasn’t because of the wound. Not entirely, at least. But it was easier to fix if you were calm, and without Dinah here that was the best option I could think of.”

“What do you mean, without Dinah?”

“She’s the only person who can make you actually relax. Even you have to have noticed that by now.”

Helena kept her mouth shut. As Harley worked, she welcomed the silence, let it into her mind so she wouldn’t have to think about things she’d rather ignore. Silence was a comfort, and she embraced it. 

“You want me to fix up those hands, too, _Rocky?_ ” 

Helena shook her head, waited until she knew Harley was finished before telling her, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“Oh, please.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” Helena turned back, and they stared at each other for a minute, before Harley sighed. “Trust me, I’ve dealt with much worse than you.”

“But what if I had hurt you? I wasn’t thinking, I was just reacting.”

Harley just laughed. “I hate to break it to you, Princess, but you don’t scare me.”

She didn’t want to think about what did scare her. “Why do you keep calling me that?” She asked instead, and she knew she was a coward by avoiding all the hard bits but she didn’t care, not today. This was already more than she’d planned on speaking anyway, and she didn’t think she had the energy to go any deeper than a nickname right now.

Harley shrugged. “That’s what everyone used to call you. You know, back when you were just a Bertinelli and not a crossbow killing machine. Even after, whenever people wrote about you or the family, the name stuck. You became a bit of a legend around here, and legends aren’t allowed to be normal. So in life and death, you became Gotham’s Princess. Eternally immortalized in childhood innocence, guilty only of having the wrong last name.”

“I know,” she said, memories of scourging through old newspapers in Italy flashing through her mind, “but you don’t have to remind me all the time.”

“The history behind it might suck now, but that isn’t going away, so you might as well make the most of the title you’ve got.” She winked at her as she stood up, and added, “Besides, how else can I remind you that I was a Queen, and I outrank you?”

Helena flipped her off, but she didn’t mean it, and by the way Harley laughed she guessed that she knew. 

“No more punching shit!” Harley called out as she walked back upstairs. Helena just sat there, laid down on the mats, letting the familiarity of the training gear diffuse her anger in a different way.

— 

By the time the sun set, Dinah still hadn’t woken up, and Helena could tell that even the others were getting anxious now. They kept watching her, as if their eyes had the power to do anything more than stare. Dinner was uncomfortably quiet, even for her, and no one would say it but they all knew why. 

“Well,” Harley said as she stood up, “as much fun as this has been, I’ve left Cass to her own devices for far too long.” 

“You know you could bring her here—“

“No.” Helena didn’t raise her voice, but the others looked at her as if she had. The word was the first thing she’d said since her confrontation with Harley in the basement that morning, and it wasn’t unusual for her to go that long without talking, but it stuck out today, was exposed as an oddity without anything else to fill the space around her.

Renee looked confused, but before she could push her on it Harley said, “Yeah, I know. Not today.” 

“Before you go,” Renee called out as Harley went to leave, “help me carry her to the bed. Not you, Bertinelli,” she said as Helena started to get out of her seat. “You sit your wounded ass down before we have to stitch you up a third time.”

“ _‘We’?_ You nerds might fight as a team, but only one of us has a PhD.” She shook her head as she and Renee walked over to the couch, and Helena heard her mumble under her breath, “When you challenge the legality of certain actions it’s a ‘Harley’ problem, but suddenly you save the day and become a ‘we’.”

Helena almost smiled, until she saw them lift Dinah off the couch. Her whole body was limp. Instantly she was hit with the feeling of recognition, so strong time itself stopped existing. Dinah looked dead, looked like everyone who had come before her, every person she had loved who had met the same fate, and only Helena knew what it felt like to watch, to pretend to be among the rest, to be carried that way but still feel the weight of the world, the burden of existence. 

Helena didn’t realize she’d stopped breathing until she felt a hand on her shoulder. She blinked as she gasped for air, was met with the concerned looks of Renee and Harley. She watched their mouths move, knew they were talking to her, but she couldn’t hear anything, and for the first time in years the silence scared her. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to remind her body it was alive. 

When she opened her eyes again, she felt the world shift into focus, just slightly. She still saw the two women in front of her, but now she felt them. Harley had a hand on her wrist, checking her pulse, but it was Renee, with the back of her hand resting against her forehead, checking for a warmth Helena knew wasn’t there, that made her flinch. It was too close to what she remembered, too much, all of it, everything was too much she couldn’t think she couldn’t breathe she couldn't—

The hands on her shoulders hit her so hard she felt her back twitch. She didn’t remember closing her eyes but now she opened them again, saw Harley’s face in front of her. She still couldn’t hear, but with only one face to focus on, she forced herself to use her training. Reading her lips, she saw Harley tell her something about breathing, which she realized she wasn’t doing. Somehow that made her angry. Something so inherent, so essential to existence that it was almost never done intentionally, yet she had to be reminded to inhale, to exhale, to allow herself to survive. She was weak, and her weakness would endanger everyone she cared about, would lead to their demise. It already had. 

The thought sparked something in her, and instead of holding her breath now she was taking too many, and she knew she was doing it but she didn’t know how to stop. She’d felt fear before, unimaginable fear, unfathomable fear, and yet this was something entirely new. It was suffocation at her own hands, drowning in oxygen, sinking into an oblivion she created. It was a unique kind of agony, caused by a wound she didn’t know how to heal. 

She felt the hand across her face, the sting making her freeze long enough for her body to catch up with her mind. She looked up, saw Harley’s face and finally heard her say, “You with me now, Princess?” She nodded slightly, and her chest still felt heavy and her breaths were shorter than they should be but at least now she was aware. When Harley told her how to breathe she listened, until the world came back to life, until she could feel everything again, from the burn on her face to the wound on her back to the dried tears on her cheeks. She wiped at those the moment she recognized them, prayed the others didn’t notice. She wouldn’t have them believing her to be weaker than she already was.

She didn’t know how long they sat there, just breathing. Harley had a patience she’d never seen before, and she wondered if this was what Doctor Quinzel had been like before the asylum and the acid and everything that followed. Renee sat next to her, held her hand, and her embarrassment was overridden by the comfort it gave her, so she didn’t pull away, not until time came back and she felt like herself again.

When Harley seemed satisfied in Helena’s ability to breathe on her own, she walked to the fridge, grabbed a water bottle, and told her, “You’re going to drink this whole thing before you go to bed.” Helena nodded as Harley handed it to her. “You want me to stay tonight?”

Helena shook her head. “I’m fine,” she added, the humiliation now left with nothing in its path. She took her hand out of Renee’s and instinctively reached for the hair tie on her wrist. “I don’t even — I mean, I’ve never—“

“It’s fine,” Harley said, and she was still mostly in Doctor mode, but Helena could hear bits of the Harley she knew coming back. “You had a panic attack. It’s a totally normal response to an increase in stress or a particularly traumatic experience, both of which you’ve had in the past 24 hours.”

“Yeah, I had a girlfriend who used to get those all the time. Took medication for it and everything. Although no one ever slapped her across the face,” Renee said, giving Harley a look that was both frustration and confusion.

“Admittedly, my method of stopping said panic attack may not have been entirely ethical.”

“Oh, you doing something unethical? I’m shocked.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

“So what, you’re just going to slap her every time it happens?”

“It’s not gonna happen again,” Helena snapped. “And I don’t need drugs, there’s nothing wrong with me.” 

“Taking medication doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you,” Harley told her, and if she’d had any more energy Helena knew her blood would be boiling but for now she settled for a simmer. 

“I’m not weak. I don’t need them.”

“No one’s saying you’re weak, but you have a history of trauma and no healthy long-term coping mechanisms, so it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that _should_ you seek some sort of method of therapy, medication might be prescribed.”

“You think I need therapy now?”

“Therapy isn’t bad, either, Princess. It’d be like going to PT. It’s just for your brain instead.”

“But—“

Harley sighed. “If Dinah went through what you did, would you tell her there was something wrong with her?”

The simmer disappeared just as quickly as it arrived. “No,” she admitted reluctantly. 

“Then there you go. And don’t worry,” Harley said with a grin that was borderline sinister. “Therapy or no therapy, you’re as sane as I am.”

“That’s reassuring,” she mumbled, and Harley looked at them, before slumping her shoulders in defeat.

“Really? None of you caught that Harry Potter reference?”

“Do I _look_ like someone who’s watched Harry Potter?” Renee said, and Helena kept her mouth shut, tried to hide the fact that she had no idea what they were talking about. 

“Ugh, where’s Cass when you need her? She’s the one who showed me the movies in the first place. See, unlike this lot, the kid actually has interests outside of vigilantism.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re one to lecture us about having hobbies, Quinn, considering yours are just as violent as ours.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she said, and she pretended to look annoyed but Helena could tell that’s all it was: pretend. Harley turned toward her, and her face softened. “I’m serious about staying, though.”

Helena shook her head. “Cass needs you. I’ll be fine.”

Harley stared at her for a minute, before shrugging and heading toward the door. “Let me know when Sleeping Beauty wakes up, I wanna wear a wig and convince her that she’s slept for five years.”

“Good _night_ , Harley,” Renee called out as the door closed behind her, and suddenly the quiet was too much again. Helena looked down at her hands, at the hair tie she twisted around her fingers over and over and over again. She couldn’t remember when the habit started, or why she did it, but she couldn’t stop doing it, either. 

“You wanna stay up for a while?” Renee asked, and there wasn’t pity in her voice but Helena swore she could hear it anyway. 

“I think one of us should stay in Dinah’s room tonight. In case she wakes up.”

“That’s not a bad idea. This your way of saying you want the first shift?” 

Helena nodded. For a minute neither of them spoke, before she finally asked the question that had been on her mind all day. “It was her mom, wasn’t it? The person you saw who blew their powers.”

Renee sighed, and Helena felt a little guilty for asking now but she also wasn’t sure she could go to sleep without knowing. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep once she did know, either. 

“It was back when her mom was running with that little crew of hers. You probably don’t even remember you were so young, but they used to go out and do what we did, just more publicly. And one day —I’m not even working, just happened to be walking by — a fight breaks out, and they all squad up, including Canary. Most people ran away, but I lingered, waited to see if I could help, which—“ She laughed, and Helena was too captivated to try and guess whether she was supposed to laugh with her or not — “they’re out here fighting some Meta and I think my gun and handful of years as a beat cop are gonna help save the day. So I’m delusional, but I’m there, and this guy just would not go down. I mean, they threw everything they had at him and he barely flinched.” 

Renee paused, and Helena didn’t have the patience to wait for her. “Is that why she did the scream?”

“No.” Something about the way she said it made Helena put her guard up, although she wasn’t sure what she was protecting herself from. “Before that, one of the guys on their team went down. Kinda like you did last night. Alive, but not in great shape. And we never really knew, but the rumor was that he and Canary were...you know, ‘a thing’, or whatever your generation calls it now. They liked each other, as more than teammates, and when he went down…” she looked back at the bedroom, where Dinah slept undisturbed. “She screamed longer than I’d ever seen or heard her do. And she took the Meta down, but as soon as she finished she dropped. One of her teammates ran off with her before the rest of the crowd could see. But I saw. And The Canary didn’t make any sort of public or private appearance for a week and a half after that, even when the team did.”

“Oh.” Just listening to it felt wrong, felt like a betrayal to Dinah somehow, even though it was Renee’s story. 

“So I don’t think Dinah will sleep for a week, but once she does wake up, I think we should be prepared for her to be out of commission for a while.”

“Do you think she’ll wake up soon?” She hated how small she felt as she asked but she was too tired to do anything about it. 

“Yeah. I think she will.” Helena didn’t think Renee was lying to her, but she also didn’t think she fully believed what she was saying. She didn’t call her out on it, just nodded and promised to wake her for a second shift. 

She waited until Renee went off to her room before gathering up the courage to walk into Dinah’s. When she did, she sat on the floor, back against the wall near her head. For an hour she barely moved, just stared at Dinah or the wall in front of her. She waited, until she couldn’t hear Renee moving anymore, until she found courage that only the early hours of the morning could give, before pulling out her phone and finding the song she’d shown her, the one she’d dreamt about. She pulled out her headphones, closed her eyes, and clicked play.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u to everyone who commented on chapter one i looked like an idiot all day bc they made me so happy!! here's chapter 2 i hope u like it! don't think this one needs any trigger warnings but let me know if it does and ill go back and add it!

The first time Dinah woke up, she didn’t know anything but pain. All she could do was feel it. Pounding in her head. Soreness in her muscles. Each individual bone in her body shaking, rattling against one another so much the rest of her body had no choice but to do the same. She didn’t have room for thoughts, could only hear one word echoing in her mind: _hurts._

The second time she woke up, she still couldn’t open her eyes. She felt everything from before, but it was all just a little softer, left room for her to feel something new: a hand on her shoulder, the touch warm, gentle, comforting. She clung to it, tried to let it drown out the rest of the world. 

The third time she woke up, she heard them. The thought of trying to look for the voices made her head throb, and there was a heat so intense she felt suffocated by it, but she discovered that if she laid down very still, if she kept her breaths steady and short, she could listen. 

The voice she heard was Helena. She could hear her but couldn’t process anything, her words as incoherent as if she’d been speaking another language. Still, something inside her was eased by the sound. She didn’t remember why, couldn’t think quite yet, but she knew that she needed to hear this voice, _her_ voice. That it mattered. That it meant she could relax now. 

The fourth time she woke up, the world finally materialized around her. The pain had dulled just enough that she could finally look up; when she did, she saw Helena standing over her, hair disheveled and eyes wide, and she couldn’t help but smile. 

“You with us this time?” She knew the words came from Renee, but the thought of turning her head to find her made her wince. 

“Does it hurt?” Helena asked, and she sounded so worried, so unlike her, that Dinah wanted desperately to lie. Her muscles yelled at her for even having that thought, and she was forced to close her eyes again and nod, just slightly. 

“I’ll go grab the Advil,” Renee said, and then she was gone, and she forced her eyes open because she didn’t want to fall asleep, not yet. She couldn’t, because now that she was awake she noticed Helena was rocking back and forth on her heels just slightly, and she was fidgeting with that hair tie again, and she wouldn’t look at her, not directly. Neither one of those things were by definition concerning, but Dinah knew her, knew that even one was a flashing sign of her discomfort, so all three...Helena didn’t cry, but Dinah suspected this was her equivalent. And she was acting like this, felt like this, because of her. 

The thought made her want to puke: instead, she reached for her hand, ignoring the searing pain in her body as she did. When she grabbed it, Helena froze, and Dinah noticed her knuckles were bruised and a little swollen, the skin underneath scabbed over. Helena followed her gaze, before slowly looking up at her. Dinah didn’t understand then, how anyone could say that she was emotionless, that she only got angry, because when Dinah looked in her eyes she saw everything. Words couldn’t describe it, so she didn’t even try, just held her for however long she’d let her.

“Take this before you pass out again.” Renee’s voice brought them both back down to Earth. Dinah felt Helena yank her hand away, although she knew it was useless — nothing went by Renee. 

Dinah reached for the pill, wincing as it went down her throat. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but now the soreness was almost unbearable. She reached for it, and knew before she even tried to speak that she’d be met with silence. 

“No voice?” Dinah nodded, and Renee sighed. “Yeah, that checks out. I’ll text Quinn, tell her to grab some tea on her way over here. And ice cream.”

She wanted to tell Renee that her efforts were noble but in vain, that there was nothing else they could do, that she’d witnessed this before and knew that the only thing that could be prescribed was patience, but she settled for nodding again, something she anticipated she’d be doing a lot of in the coming days. 

—

Once Harley walked through the door, she talked nonstop for the next four hours, which was as insufferable as she anticipated it would be. Dinah had to admit, the small part of her that didn’t want to shoot her was impressed that she had so much to say. Despite what her own pseudonym might imply, she’d never felt like she had or did anything worth talking about. She preferred to talk about other people, other things, music and movies and everything that was simple. For Harley, everything somehow circled back to her, and everything was twenty times more complex than it appeared. And it never stopped. 

When Renee finally woke up, Dinah said a silent prayer. She had fallen asleep almost as soon as Harley had walked in, and for all her many strengths, Helena was ill equipped when it came to distracting Harley from talking about herself. She’d sat on the floor in Dinah’s room and listened silently the entire time, something that was more impressive than the monologues themselves. As much as she’d wished for relief from being an unwilling witness to the unfiltered thoughts of one Harley Quinn, she didn’t mind how much time it gave her to watch Helena, to look at her without needing an explanation as to why. She’d relied on stolen glances up until this point, but today she let her gaze go uninterrupted, let herself drown in the sight of her doing absolutely nothing, let her pretend this was peace and they were okay. 

She’d been so caught up in her she hadn’t noticed Renee until she spoke up. “Quinn, when does Cass get out of school? You haven’t forgotten about her while you’ve been eating all my food and torturing Dinah and Helena, have you?”

“Woke up on the bitch side of the bed, have we?” Harley quipped, and Dinah bit back a smile at the mockery she was certain was only half serious. 

“Doesn’t answer the question.”

“How bad of an illegal guardian do you think I am?” Renee just glared at her, and Harley sighed. “Her school gets out in seven minutes and it’s much closer to your place than mine, so I have two more minutes before I have to leave, _but_ because I’m such a responsible adult, and because I don’t wanna put up with this negative energy you’re bringing, I’ll go now.” She turned dramatically, calling out goodbye to Dinah and Helena and flipping off Renee as she left. 

Once the door had shut and it was just the three of them, Helena said softly, “Listening to Harley talk isn’t torture.”

“Speak for yourself.” Dinah would have laughed if she could, but she settled for a smile. Renee sat down, took over the chair Harley had dragged into her room, and for the first time in hours it was quiet. As much as she couldn’t stand listening to Harley, somehow this was worse. She didn’t really understand it, because she thought she wanted silence, but right now it felt oppressive. With nothing to distract her, her mind forced her to go back to the fight that had put her here, to watch the images she desperately wanted out of her head. All she could hear were her own thoughts and they were much louder than she wanted them to be, much harder to ignore. They told her everything she’d done wrong and she wondered if maybe they were right.

“Hey, Bertinelli.” The words made her blink back into focus, her mind temporarily at bay. She saw Renee had her eyes on Helena. “When’s the last time you slept?”

This time when Dinah looked at her, she saw what she should have seen earlier: the bags under her eyes, the head resting heavily in her hand, the way every blink got slower and slower. She wondered what kind of person it made her that she’d been staring at her for hours and hadn’t noticed a thing, had only seen beauty. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Yeah, bullshit. Come on, get up. You’re not sleeping on the floor again.” 

“I said I’m fine,” Helena responded, and Dinah could hear the tension in the words, the kind that usually meant an explosion was coming. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand next to her, texted as fast as she could. She watched the message come through, watched Helena read it and turn back toward her. _Go,_ Dinah mouthed. _I’ll be fine._

Helena seemed hesitant, but it was as if Renee pointing out her lack of sleep had accelerated the process of exhaustion, because after a moment she closed her eyes and nodded. She stumbled as she stood up, and Dinah instinctively leaned forward, a movement her body punished her for. She tried to breathe through the pain as she watched Renee run over to Helena, steady her until she waved her off, walk with her out of Dinah’s bedroom and down the hall to her own. 

Five minutes later Renee was back. Dinah had her phone ready, sent the message as soon as she sat down. _How long has she been awake?_

Renee looked at it and sighed. “If she didn’t sleep while Harley was here? Almost a day and a half.”

She was positive her reaction asked the question for her, but she still frantically typed, _Why?_

“Why do you think? If she had it her way, she probably would have stayed up the past three days since the fight, but she was sedated the first night, and I managed to get her to sleep the night after by letting her stay on your fucking floor.”

She wasn’t convinced she wanted to ask, but she did anyway. _And what about yesterday?_

Renee ran a hand through her hair, and Dinah realized that even though she’d just woken up, she still looked exhausted. “Yesterday you spiked a fever out of nowhere. We stayed up half the night throwing ice packs on you, trying to force medicine down your throat. Even after it broke, I don’t think she really believed everything was okay. So she stayed up all night, waited for something to go wrong again. And I know, because I stayed up with her.”

Dinah didn’t know what to say. She’d asked, when she’d first woken up, how long she’d been asleep, what had happened while she was out, but no one had given her a real answer. They'd brushed it off and she’d let them, but now...three days. That was almost as long as her mom’s worst. She’d been ten when the guys burst through her door, her mom unconscious in their arms. Dinah remembered the nights she’d spent in her bed, curled up next to her, the sound of her heartbeat putting her to sleep. When she finally woke up, when her voice eventually came back, she’d made Dinah promise her that if she ever decided to use her powers, she had to make sure she was with people she trusted, that she knew what she was doing. She’d told her that the Lance women were driven by impulsiveness, that they both followed their heart instead of their head, but that she would have to be better, smarter, stronger. 

“You have to be more careful, D.” The memory hadn’t fully faded, so Renee’s voice sounded exactly like her mom’s. A shiver went down her spine and she didn’t think the exhaustion was to blame.

_What do you mean?_

“You can’t be that reckless with your voice. It isn’t safe, not for you or the rest of us.”

_It’s not like I meant to blow my powers._

“That’s exactly the problem.”

Part of her was glad that she didn’t have a voice, because she knew she’d be close to yelling if she could speak right now. Instead, she typed: _What was I supposed to do, huh? You saw all those men coming at us._

“Yeah, and I also saw your face when Helena took that knife for you.”

_What are you trying to say?_

“That the army might be why you did the scream in the first place, but Helena is why you didn’t stop when they all hit the floor.”

Dinah froze. She remembered the moment as if it had happened in slow motion. She remembered the feeling of Helena’s arms on her, her life literally resting on her shoulders. She could see the panic in her eyes when she spotted the men, watched it grow as she’d brought her hands over her ears, but most of all, she could hear the sound Helena made when the knife hit her. It sounded like pain, pure and simple, and she was overwhelmed with the feeling of never wanting to hear it again. When Dinah had turned around and yelled, when she’d let go, it was that cry that she’d heard, louder than her own voice. It pushed her farther than she’d ever gone before, and she let it without hesitation.

 _They hurt Helena,_ she texted after a while, and she knew Renee probably wanted more of an explanation but that was the only way she could describe it, the only thing that had mattered. 

“Yeah, I know, but what do you think would have happened to her if there’d been more of them? What if Harley hadn’t been able to get to us as fast as she did, and I had to try and run away from the cops with you unconscious and her hurt? What then?”

 _I didn’t think about that,_ she said after a minute.

“Yeah, of course you didn’t. Because when it comes to Helena, you’re all heart and no logic. Which is fine when we’re here, but you gotta find a way to turn that off when we’re in the field, because otherwise we’re gonna get into a situation we can’t get ourselves out of.”

Dinah went type, but Renee cut her off. “Don’t you go and give me that ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ bullshit. I live here, too. I have eyes.”

Dinah knew she was kidding herself, but she still typed the words anyway. _I don’t know what you’re talking about._

Renee laughed but it didn’t last. “Listen, I don’t give a shit about what you two do or don’t do, but if you ever plan on moving past staring at her all day and hoping she won’t notice, you gotta make sure you know what you’re doing. I know we all got our shit, but Helena’s a lot more fragile than she seems.”

 _Fragile? We talking about the same Helena? Huntress? The Crossbow Killer?_

“She’s not just Huntress, though — she’s Helena _Bertinelli._ Don’t forget what that name means. The baggage that comes with it.”

 _We’ve all lost people._

“Not like her.”

Dinah didn’t know why she was getting defensive all of a sudden, but the idea that Helena was weak pissed her off. Helena was the strongest person she knew. She was resilient and empathetic and fearless, and the implication that in Dinah’s hands she was breakable fueled a fire in her she didn’t know still burned.

_What does that have to do with me? You think I’d ever do anything to hurt her?_

“Blowing your powers already has,” Renee said, and Dinah’s face must have mirrored exactly how she felt about that assertion, because she quickly added, “It’s not your fault or anything. You can’t control how she responds to things, but—fuck, I just—you didn’t see what Quinn and I saw this weekend, okay? If you did, maybe you’d understand what I’m trying to get at here.”

 _Tell me what happened,_ Dinah typed, and she didn’t know whether she was still angry or just confused or something else entirely but she knew she needed to know. _Tell me all of it._

Renee hesitated, and Dinah was inches from throwing her phone at her, desperate to communicate her own desperation. Finally, she took a breath, and Dinah felt herself holding hers. “The morning after the fight, she punched the shit out of the bag downstairs, without gloves. When she came up her fists were bruised and bleeding but she wouldn’t let anyone wrap them or ice them, just left it as it was. Pretty sure she tore her stitches, too, because Harley went down with a suture kit. And I’m sure she provoked her but I don’t think she had to work too hard to do it.”

Dinah felt like her heart was beating out of her chest, but she forced herself to type: _What else?_

“That night, when we were moving you from the couch to here,” Renee started, and she kept hesitating, and Dinah couldn’t stand it, both the not knowing and the fear of whatever Renee was afraid to tell her. 

_What??_ She finally texted, and Renee never read it but she had to know what it was asking, because she exhaled and looked right at her. 

“She had a panic attack. But Dinah, it was—“ she shook her head. “We looked over at her and she’d stopped breathing. She didn’t hear us, didn’t see us, for a solid minute and a half. It was the scariest shit I’ve ever seen her do.” 

Dinah felt the world stop moving around her, time slowing to a standstill. Suddenly she wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore, but it was too late, because Renee opened her mouth and kept talking. 

“Once she finally took a breath, it was like she didn’t know how to stop. She just kept gasping, over and over and over again. Like a fish out of water. She didn’t exhale, not until Harley fucking slapped her across the face. And don’t give me that look,“ she added, “I already yelled at her for it.”

She didn’t want that image in her head. She didn’t want to hear it, because it meant that Renee was right, that Helena was in pain again, was hurting, all because of her. Her fault. The knife, the no sleep, and now this. 

“I’m not telling you to make you feel like shit.” Renee’s tone was softer, and Dinah kept her eyes on her phone because she didn’t trust herself to look up yet. She felt tears in her eyes but willed them away. “I’m just trying to show you that you matter to her. Probably more than the rest of us. Which is why you have to be extra careful.” 

Dinah didn’t say anything. If the consequences of her mattering to Helena were panic attacks and bruised knuckles, if the cost of her affection was torn stitches and no sleep, who was she to still want it? How selfish did she have to be to expect that anyone would suffer through that much pain for her?

“You know, she did other stuff while you were asleep,” Renee said, and Dinah finally lifted her gaze, glared at her and her apparent need to pour salt in her freshly torn wound, but she was smiling, and Dinah didn’t understand it, until she said, “That night, she sang to you.”

Dinah looked at her, and she could feel her eyebrow raising because Helena didn’t sing. Period. Once and a while Dinah caught her listening to music on her own, but she spent so much time in silence that music usually didn’t have a place in her world unless it was coming from her or the others. 

“It was that song you’d been playing a lot about a week ago. The river one. It was her turn to stay up with you, and I think she thought I was asleep. I could hear it through the walls. She sang it on a loop for about a half hour. Sounded pretty good too. I mean, she’s no you, but still: not bad at all.”

Dinah didn’t have words. She knew the song Renee was talking about. She’d caught Helena watching her as she sang it one day, made them lie down on the floor and blast it over her speakers so Helena could appreciate it properly. She remembered saying it might help her relax at night, and her heart fluttered at the memory, at what it said in a way that Helena would never put into words. 

“Also,” Renee added, and Dinah wasn’t sure she was ready for more, had barely begun to process the rest of it. “She might have been praying. Yesterday, when you were sick, I walked out of your room to grab more ice packs. When I came back she was mumbling in Italian, I think. I don’t know what she was saying, but the way she was saying it — I don’t know, it felt familiar. Reminded me of my church going days.”

Her brain couldn’t even begin to comprehend that. She didn’t think Helena was religious, had certainly never talked to her about it and hadn’t seen her do anything that would make her think otherwise. But maybe she was. Maybe Dinah didn’t know her at all, and she’d been kidding herself by thinking she did. 

She forced her eyes down to her phone. All of it, everything Renee kept telling her, everything she felt, it was all too much. She wasn’t sure if this made her weak or a coward or both, but she filed everything important away for later and instead asked, _You used to go to church?_

Renee laughed, and Dinah couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I’m not exactly living the kind of lifestyle they preach about, but old habits die hard and all.”

Dinah tried to laugh, but all she was met with was pain. She winced, and Renee switched into caregiver mode instantly. “You want some more Advil?”

She shook her head. _I just have to wait it out,_ she typed. _Should be back to normal in a few days._

“You ever blown your powers like this before?” Part of her wanted to lie, but Renee would see right through it. 

_Once,_ she said. _The night they found her._ She knew Renee would know what night she was talking about. She’d begged her not to go out, told her she hadn’t healed from her last fight yet, that the rest of the group wouldn’t go if cops were supposed to show up, but she didn’t listen, never listened. “People’s lives are at stake, Dinah,” she’d told her. “Who would I be if I let them get hurt when I could have stopped it?” And then she was gone. Hours passed, too many hours, and it didn’t feel right, so she was still up, pacing back and forth, too scared to keep the TV and radio on anymore. The silence was uncanny, made the whole house feel cold and creepy and _wrong_. When her neighbor banged on the door, the one who knew what her mom’s night shift entailed, Dinah didn’t wait for her to say a word before she ran out, down to where she should be, where all the cameras and the news reporters had been. When she got there all she saw was her, lying in the middle of the street. Alone. Not moving. The cops were everywhere now, had been nowhere when she’d had the TV on hours ago, trying to catch glimpses of the fight that was more than unlevel. They had their cones and their cars and their fucking lights on, but no one had touched the body, not even to cover it. She was out there on display, for everyone to see. 

Dinah didn’t remember much of what happened after that. She remembered running away, screaming so loud she thought she’d die right then and there. When she woke up, she was back in her house, and her throat was on fire. Everyone around her chalked it up to grief, didn’t blink an eye when she looked like shit and couldn’t speak as she collected too many lasagnas for one person to possibly eat. Even in death her mom had protected her. She’d also taught her one last lesson: no matter who you were or what you did, everybody died alone.

“I think she’d be really proud of you, Dinah.” Renee’s words brought her back to the present, and she was grateful that she didn’t have a voice, because the tears threatened to make an appearance again, and all she could manage was a nod. 

They sat there for a minute, the silence threatening to take her back. She searched for a distraction, an anchor to keep her out of the past. Her mind instantly went to Helena. Helena singing to her. Helena praying for her. Helena sitting on her floor, listening to Harley’s rants and rambles as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. Helena looking up at her when Dinah reached for her hands, a rare moment of vulnerability. Every thought led her back to her. 

_Did anything else happen while I was out?_ She asked, and she watched Renee read it, watched her hesitate, before shaking her head. Her heart dropped into her stomach. _There’s something you’re not telling me,_ she added, and she knew she was right when Renee bit her lip. _Say it._

Renee didn’t protest, just slumped her shoulders and looked up at her. “When Helena was panicking, on that first night, she...she started crying. And I don’t know about you, but I’d never seen her do that before.”

No. Dinah shook her head, because that didn’t make sense. Helena didn’t cry. They’d pulled bullets out of her before. They’d talked about her family. She hadn’t even gotten choked up. Dinah looked to her right, as if she could see into Helena’s room. How badly had she hurt her that she could do what nothing else could?

“That isn’t a bad thing.” Renee seemed to read her mind, because she added, “It just shows how much she cares about you. Loves you.”

 _Maybe she shouldn’t._ The words felt petty and dramatic but she sent them anyway. 

She watched Renee read her text, watched her eyebrows shoot up in incredulity, before making a noise that sounded like a laugh without any of the humor. “God, you two really are made for each other,” she groaned. “I mean, the only other person I know who would hear all of that and come to the conclusion you just did is sleeping on the other side of that wall. She’s probably blaming herself for you blowing your powers out, the same way you’re blaming yourself for her reaction. And I don’t know about Helena, but I know that you’re convinced if you admit you care about her, it’s somehow gonna hurt her. Hell, she’s probably thinking the same fucking thing. It won’t, by the way, but you’re both too heartsick to realize that the only way you could ever really hurt each other would be by telling yourselves that you need to stay away. So now you’re both content to make yourselves and one another miserable by doing nothing.”

Dinah just stared at her. The change in tone felt like whiplash, and for the first time all day her mind was totally blank. “Sorry,” Renee added, her voice doing another 180, her tone now apologetic and borderline sheepish. “I didn’t mean to snap like that. I just don’t want to have to watch you two miss out on something that could be really good because you don’t think you deserve it, or some bullshit like that. Because you do. Both of you.”

Still, Dinah said nothing. Stubbornly, she didn’t want to prove Renee right, but she also didn’t want to fight her on it, didn’t want to defend her initial position, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe she was just tired, and maybe it was because she didn’t have a voice to argue with anyway, but maybe part of her — the selfish part, the hopeful part that never seemed to die no matter how many times she tried to kill it — hoped Renee was right. That loving Helena wasn’t forcing her into a life of pain. That she might even love her back.

 _What would you suggest I do then?_ She felt exposed just asking, but she discovered she needed an answer more than she needed her pride.

Renee sighed. “Listen, I know I’m a multi-talented person, and I know I just gave you a lecture about your love life, but I’m not so sure I should be the one giving actual relationship advice. My track record is...not exceptional.” She shrugged, before adding, “Just do what feels right, and don’t let yourself sabotage a good thing before you have it.”

Dinah nodded. She looked down at her phone, clicked out of the text app and came face to face with her screensaver. It was a picture of her and the other girls at Cass’s school, her favorite picture, because while the kid was beaming and Harley was making some ridiculous face, Helena was standing in the back, smiling not at the camera but at the people in front of her. As she stared at it, she wondered if Renee knew just how badly she wanted to be the reason Helena smiled like that, wondered if her want for it was strong enough to outweigh all the reasons she shouldn’t.

— 

When Dinah woke up the next morning, Helena was standing in her doorway. She wasn’t surprised to see her — Helena always woke up first, usually managed to fit in a run and a shower before Dinah even left her room — but she was surprised at how good it made her feel, having Helena be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. It was almost enough to ignore the soreness of her throat, the achiness of the rest of her body. 

“I wasn’t being creepy,” Helena said when she realized Dinah was awake. “I just — do you need anything? Pain pills or tea or I could get the ice cream from the freezer or—“

She tried to talk, but the most she could muster was a pathetic squeak, too quiet to be heard by anyone else and nowhere near an actual word. Instead she just waved her off, reaching for her phone. _I’m fine,_ she said, and she watched Helena read it, watched the way she glanced at the kitchen before looking back at her, watched the way she shifted her weight slightly from the balls of her feet to her heels and back again.

Dinah tried to hide her smile as she realized what was happening. _You wanna come sit with me?_ She typed, and Helena nodded, and when she sat in the chair Harley had left behind yesterday, still all the way across the room, Dinah waved her closer, until Helena was about a foot away from her head. 

_You know, you never need an invitation to come in here._

Helena shrugged. “I don’t want to invade your privacy.”

 _You could never._

Helena almost smiled at that, but Dinah knew she didn’t believe it, that she’d have to tell her it was okay the next time she wanted to come in, and the time after that. She didn’t mind, though — she’d give her permission every day of her life if that’s what it took. 

“Do you want me to play some music?” Helena asked, and Dinah raised an eyebrow at her question. 

_I thought you liked sitting in silence._

“You don’t. And I don’t mind your music.”

Dinah again found herself grateful she couldn’t speak, because she knew the words that were sitting at the edge of her tongue, desperate to make themselves heard: _sing to me._ She couldn’t get herself to type them out, and part of her knew that was for the best. If she tried to get Helena to do something that intimate when she wasn’t ready, she might never get to hear it at all. 

_Teach me how to like the quiet,_ she typed instead. _How do I be like you?_

“Why would you want to be like me?” The question was so earnest, the self-deprecation so intertwined with curiosity that it took Dinah a minute to recognize it. 

_You’re amazing. Why wouldn’t I want to be like you?_ Helena just looked at her, like she didn’t understand, and suddenly Dinah didn’t feel like letting this one go. _Tell me one thing you like about yourself, and it can’t be about fighting._

She just stared at her, like she was waiting for Dinah to tell her it was a joke, but Dinah was dead serious, and after a minute Helena seemed to realize it. “Dinah, this is stupid.”

 _Not to me._

Helena went to protest, but the look Dinah gave her must have communicated her feelings well enough, because she didn’t, just bit her lip and kept her mouth shut. Dinah looked at her expectantly, but as the silence went on, she felt her gaze soften. She could see Helena thinking, could tell she was actually trying, and yet she didn’t say a word. Dinah longed to reach for her but was terrified of scaring her off, of making her ever feel like she was abnormal or someone to be pitied, so she kept her hands to herself. 

When Helena finally looked up at her, Dinah swore she saw an ocean of pain in her eyes, so deep she couldn’t see an end or beginning. She saw insecurity, something she rarely associated with Helena because the warrior in her oozed confidence, made it so easy to assume that was permanent and not contingent on her fists and her crossbow. 

Her thumbs couldn’t type fast enough for her, and it took all her willpower to stop her hands from shaking. _I like how you’re always trying to be helpful to the people around you._ Helena looked down at her phone, and Dinah kept typing, doing her best to keep her eyes on her. _I like the way you talk to Cass like she’s an adult, how you always take her seriously._

“She’s smart,” Helena whispered, “of course I take her seriously.”

 _I like how you always listen to the people around you, even when Harley’s going off on some rant that doesn’t make any sense._ Helena smiled at that one, the corners of her mouth just barely rising, but it was enough to get Dinah to add, _I like the way I feel when I’m with you._

“How do you feel when you’re with me?” Dinah knew where this would lead, the confession she’d have to make, but Helena looked up at her as she asked, and Dinah could never lie to her, even if she’d wanted to. And as she typed, she realized she didn’t want to.

 _Like I’m home._

Helena stared at the words for so long Dinah felt her palms begin to sweat, and a small part of her itched to take them back but she wouldn’t, couldn’t, because they were true. And maybe, regardless of how she might react, Helena needed to hear them more than Dinah needed to say them.

“Tell me what that’s like,” she said softly, her eyes still down. 

Dinah started typing before her mind could form sentences. It was like knowing the lyrics to a song she never remembered learning: the words were just there. _It feels like exhaling. Like letting go of a weight you didn’t realize you were carrying. It feels like singing along to the radio and not worrying about who hears you. It’s soft and calm and I didn’t notice how much I missed it until you gave it back to me._

Helena took her time reading the words, but Dinah didn’t have it in her to feel restless anymore. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t move or speak, that her strongest weapon was depleted beyond use: as long as Helena was here, she was safe. And nothing could change that.

“You—“ she started, and she finally brought her eyes up to Dinah’s. “Do you love me?”

The way Helena asked, like the very idea was so foreign and confusing to her, like she’d never considered it was a possibility before, made her want to laugh and cry at the same time; instead, she just smiled, nodding her head and watching the gears in Helena's mind turn.

“How?” She asked, then added, “I mean, in what way?”

Renee’s words echoed in the back of her mind. She typed her next words out slowly, taking the time to read them over before she clicked send. _I’ll love you in whatever way you’ll let me._

Helena’s eyes lingered over the text, and Dinah was desperate, desperate to grab her and show her exactly what she meant, but she knew it had to be her. She wouldn’t make a move unless Helena did, wouldn’t rush her or force her into something she wasn’t ready for, but waiting was agony and she wondered how long she could go without some sort of sign. If she was alone in her feelings that would...that would be fine, she could live through that, could find a way to get over herself for Helena’s sake but she needed to _know,_ needed to—

In an instant, every thought in her head was wiped clean, because Helena’s lips were on hers and oh, oh this is what they all meant. The singers, blasting through her speakers, preaching a different kind of gospel, and she’d always thought she knew what they were talking about but now, now it all made sense. She reached for her, and she couldn’t feel pain anymore, couldn’t feel any part of her body that wasn’t touching Helena. She was the whole world, the only thing that existed, and Dinah knew she’d never get enough of her. 

By the time they pulled away from one another she was out of breath. She could see Helena was too, could see the heavy way her chest rose and fall, could see the blush in her cheeks and the awe in her eyes. She could feel herself smiling, except she wasn’t smiling she was fucking beaming, and she knew she probably looked like an idiot but she didn’t care, because Helena smiled back at her, and suddenly nothing else mattered.

For a minute they both just sat there. Helena was standing now, had leaned out of her chair to kiss her, and she didn’t know what came next but she knew she didn’t want whatever this was, whatever they were now, to ever stop.

Dinah shifted over, and almost laughed at the way Helena’s eyes widened at the sight of more room on the bed next to her. She shook her head, grabbed her phone and typed, _just come lay down with me._ Helena hesitated at first, but then she did, and it was a tight squeeze but Dinah didn’t care. As they laid there, she felt the words on her tongue again, itching to come out: _sing to me, sing to me, sing to me._ Still, she waited, and she thought she might have been the strongest person in the world for doing so. 

She had a million other questions she wanted to ask about them, about the kiss she didn’t think she’d ever stop thinking about, but she didn’t want to talk about it, not yet. The moment felt sacred, and she wanted it to stay that way for just a little bit longer. Instead, she typed her initial question again: _Teach me how to like the quiet._

“No.”

Dinah turned toward her, and she almost had to look up to find her eyes. _No?_

Helena looked down at her, and for the first time all morning she seemed sure of herself. “No. To like the quiet, you have to disappear in it. To be a part of it. To not exist, to not _want_ to exist. You have to kill every voice in your head, every instinct to be heard, and yours is too beautiful to be silenced.”

Dinah had to resist the urge to kiss her again; instead, she reached for her hand, let their fingers intertwine under the covers. She realized she had one more request, but refused to let go, so with one hand she slowly typed the words: _then play me that song I showed you last week. You remember?_

Helena nodded, and a minute later the music was playing. Dinah closed her eyes, laid her head on Helena’s shoulder, and she knew she was right before, because this, them together? This was home, the way she remembered it, the way it was always supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am always open to prompt ideas if u have any! you can put them here and i promise i'll see it but im neurotic and never respond to comments so if you go yell at me on tumblr i probably will actually respond to you maybe lol (@thanks--for--listening). also hit me up on tumblr if u just wanna yell about BOP in general bc its my whole personality right now. 
> 
> also trying to write dialogue when you've made it so the narrator literally can't speak...insert "congratulations you played yourself" meme lol. 
> 
> as always, kudos and comments always appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos literally give me life so those r always much appreciated! 
> 
> the song in the dream is "River" by Leon Bridges (it's also where the title is from) so give that a listen if you want. 
> 
> also im literally already done with part 2 of this but im neurotic and wanna give myself an extra day to edit it so it'll go up either on sunday or monday depending on how productive i am with my hw lol. 
> 
> also i do NOT condone Harley's practices in attempting to stop panic attacks pls do not try that at home lol 
> 
> hit me up on tumblr if u want @thanks--for--listening


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